Project Background
The UConn Outing Club
The Outing Club at UConn does "anything and everything outdoors!" They host weekly outdoor trips with activities that could be as simple as hiking and yoga to as adventurous as owl spotting and rock climbing.
As one of the largest no-commitment clubs at the University, they have to make sure that for each trip everyone has a ride, the right equipment, and skill level to participate in their activities. Their current communication method is through email and instagram which is mostly used as a one-way communication for news and updates, making it inefficient way to keep up with inquiries from their 1,500 total members and 400 active members have about planned outdoor trips.
Project Evolution
1st Pivot: Approved project didn't give me complete creative freedom
Initially, I had planned to design a website for an existing beverage company, and my professors approved of the project. However, mid way through the semester, as I was finishing the website I realized that I didn't have complete creative freedom, which is what I wanted to explore with my senior project.
2nd Pivot: Assumption on audience, and broad scope
I knew I wanted to create something that encouraged other people to go more into the outdoors, so my new project idea emerged: collect stickers as you visit new outdoor places! I sketched out my initial idea and interviewed a few people before I started developing the idea further. Here are some sketches:
After 7 interviews ranging from people interested in the outdoors to those that weren't, it became apparent that if they were not interested in a digital sticker collection or outdoor activities in the first place, they would never even consider downloading such an application. So it was time to investigate further.
Final Direction: Focused audience, narrowed scope
One of my friends invited me to the UConn Outing Club, and I went. That's when I found people who may be interested in an outdoor application. Better yet, it was clear that the board members had trouble with managing rides for everyone (about 200 - 300 people, I was surprised the lecture hall was packed) each week.
Thus, I narrowed down my audience to UConn Outing Club members. As the year was ending and I was already behind, I decided to scrap my sticker collection idea and narrow the scope of the project to focus managing rides for the UConn Outing Club.
UConn Outing
A mobile application (fully interactive Figma prototype) called "UConn Outing" that streamlines ride management so that club members can spend less time worrying about rides and gear, and more time planning for trip activities.
I narrowed down the experience in the application I was going to design further after I connected with more club members and e-board members of the club and asked them questions about why they joined the the outing club and tasks they had to in the club do besides going on trips or managing rides.
My focus was on the experience with club members rather than regular members
Project Prototype Draft Critique and Next Steps
Midway through out project timeframe, we shared each other's work and this is the feedback that I got: for positive feedback, people really like the simplicity of the application, the animations, and the illustration on the alert cards. Things that could be improved are mostly minor: There were a few errors here and there which I will be fixing, there are some things I could add such as a map view of where we are meeting for a particular trip, and to inject more of the UConn's Outing Club branding (or do a rebranding) into the overall design of the application.
After fixing these minor issues, I plan to meet up with several board members and regular club members during and after winter break to let them have a feel my first prototype and get feedback on it from both an admin and a regular member to listen to what kind of features they would like and why.
- This section is written as of Dec 15, 2023
Further development
After receiving critique, I set out to meet with a few board members to receive feedback of my prototype. Unfortunately, I was never able to meet with the board members, but I was able to meet with a few other members of the club. Their feedback was positive, although when I saw them navigating through my prototype, I saw a few flaws in my user flow where there were too many ways to do the same thing. So, for the rest of the time, I not only spent time implementing feedback from the December critique, I also optimized each flow to create a more simple and intuitive experience.
